… Better late than never, right?

Last week our team had two important days. First, on Friday, we had a brainstorming session with our team facilitator Raúl. And on the following day, it was time for Demola Jam #2.

We had asked Raúl to come and brainstorm with us. He had planned three different methods for us to get the most out of us. We started with different themes (there was for example The Lord Of The Rings/Star Wars, Wearable Technologies, and When I was little I wanted to be…) and we each combined those with random emotions and then we were to think of a new way to combine the theme, the emotion and our infopoint. Some of the combinations were interesting, to say the least, others actually made a good point.

Next we wrote everyday technical objects on post-it notes, each of us had to write 5 to 7 of them, each item on its own post-it note. Then those post-its were placed upside down to the table and each of us picked up two in random. We then had to combine those two items and our info point. At this point it was starting to get a bit late on a Friday afternoon and our ideas definitely reflected that. However, many of those ideas might prove usuful as long as we think them through again and actually find the usuful part in them.

The last method of the day was five scenarios or situations and each of us had to write down, how our info point could solve the situation or at least help with it or adapt to it. This method was maybe the most concreate of the three and it also gave us some almost-ready ideas that should be given to our project partner at the end of the project.

Fast-forward to Saturday morning, and we were back in Demola. Like last time, the Jam began with breakfast. Even though many of us had coffee or tea, luckily the first thing on the actual agenda was Wakey-wakey which did just what it promised. After having used different bofy parts to write our name in the air, it was easier to stay focused on the actual agenda.

Before lunch, we had some workshops. Team members could choose which workshop interested them the most. We could choose between business, art and media, green, management, and design. We had some time before lunch to discuss what each of us had done in their workshop but we are still going to go through all of that later this week to make sure we have every important idea written down.

After lunch there was many presentations. We learned about good storytelling, the mom test and how to avoid bad data, and how to make beautiful presentations (fonts and colours and stuff). There was also the part of the day which many had dreaded: speed-date pitching. All of the people from different projects were placed in to circles, one inside the other and facing the outer circle. Then, we had one minute to pitch our project to the person standing in front of us. After they gave us some feedback, it was their turn to pitch. After the second feedback, the outer circle moved to the next person and the pitching started again. We did this for five or six times. Personally, I didn’t feel it was as bad as it had first sounded. But let’s be honest, by the time we were pitching the last time, it was getting a bit exhausting and it showed in the quality of the picth.

The day was over around four, we got some snacks and time to discuss with our team. We made plans for our next meet and sortly after went our separate ways to spend the rest of the Saturday evening.

The contrast of surrounding colors impacted how well we remember the color pattern. In other words, color differences between the content and the background may enhance our ability to focus our attention on the content itself. x